Member-only story
Frictionless Is Not Enough
Delivering small doses of delight to earn long-term customer loyalty in a problem-filled environment
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to customer experience management. At first, supply chain disruptions made the fulfillment of customer orders difficult. Then restrictions on physical contact and social gatherings brought in-person customer engagement to a halt.
Although many businesses have pivoted to the digital channel, bridging offline and online customer experience is fraught with obstacles and complications. Many companies today are facing a “many fires, few solutions” reality.
Consumers are feeling this reality in their purchase experience. A recent consumer survey found that a shocking 66% of customers experienced at least one problem in their most recent purchase. Examples of the issues encountered included insufficient or ambiguous information on the website, undesirable delivery time windows, stock-outs, and product return issues.
Faced with all these problems, it is understandable that many businesses have focused their current attention on addressing issues and restoring a frictionless customer experience. But is putting out fires enough to stand out from the competition and ensure long-term customer loyalty?
We believe the answer is no. In a problem-prone environment, only addressing problems will at best achieve competitive parity. When the crisis is over, customers will not remember the absence of problems. To be memorable in the long run, businesses need to offer their customers small doses of happiness in an otherwise dark and stressful time.
This article draws from scientific research on customer delight to advise customer experience management in the current environment. Specifically, we will cover:
- the psychology of customer delight;
- why customer delight is critical right now; and
- how to effectively create and deliver customer delight today.
